RELATIONSHIPS
Getting our needs met
How getting clear about our needs and expressing them can change our relationships for the better.
by Liisa Halme
SURVIVING OR THRIVING Human beings can survive in very different, adverse conditions by cunningly adapting to our environment. We can survive starved of good nutrition or starved of love. However, in order to thrive rather than just survive, we will need more optimal nourishment. Like everything in nature, the better nourished we are the better we thrive, inside and out! When we were little we were
completely dependent on our parents or primary caregivers. This was the time when we learnt, amongst many other things, about having our needs met. If all or most of our early needs for food, shelter, protection, love and affection etc. were promptly met, we were more likely to learn that we have the ability to get what we need in life.
UNMET NEEDS If certain needs were rarely or hardly ever met, we were likely to learn that no matter what, we cannot get what we need and it is not worth trying. In young babies that are left to ‘cry it out’, the activation of the freeze response eventually makes them stop crying (it could be potentially dangerous to keep crying and attracting attention of predators). But when this is repeated regularly the baby learns by conditioning that no matter how much they cry, nobody will come and/or their needs will not be met – so they give up
trying. This is called learnt helplessness (a condition that pre-disposes us to a variety of mental health issues later on in life). If, as children, we had to work hard
to get our needs met, we developed different methods to get what we want and need – and some coping mechanisms for when we didn’t. Perhaps we learnt that we get Mum’s love and attention by being sick, or being helpless, or by throwing a tantrum, or bossing her around – or by being a ‘good girl’ or a ‘good boy’. Thus we understood that there are conditions to being loved because, consciously or unconsciously, we equate having our needs being met to being loved. We also learnt to completely deny
and block off unmet needs as a defence mechanism. This is how our defences are born.
GETTING CLEAR ON OUR NEEDS Step 1. Identifying our needs If our needs as children were frequently not met and we learnt to shut off the unmet needs altogether in order to get by and to numb out the associated pain, it may take a lot of digging to actually identify our needs and get clear about what they are in the first place. Good indications for unmet needs are
repeated situations where you feel less than fulfilled. Are you settling for less, or going for everything you want in life? Do you stay in an unfulfilling
relationship, job, and/or situation because you’re afraid it’s the best you can get? Do you think it’s wrong or useless to want for something more or to ask for what you want and need?
MARCH | APRIL 2018 59
IMAGE: CAROLINE HERNANDEZ
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